A Man for All Treasons

Release the socks.

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Live from the mean streets of midtown Manhattan, Jonah delivers a fiery and excessive—but mostly peaceful—Ruminant. After opening with a discussion of how—much like the government—Donald Trump will never love you back, he turns to the outrage provoked by the cancelation of a West Texas A&M drag show. From there, he gracefully dances between topics ranging from the ridiculous “cult of youth” to Ron DeSantis’ tepid approach to foreign policy, before finally settling into a deep discussion of what patriotism really means. 

Show Notes:

– Our niche legal podcast discusses the Trump indictment…

– …and so does the Dispatch Podcast

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    Since some commenters get bothered by the generational comments because they feel implicated in some way, I figured I’d just say that I’m 26 and I agree entirely with your comments, Jonah, about young people and the cult of youth (and did when I was reading the G-File at NR back in college). If banning TikTok will annoy the Gen Z crowd, good. They need to get used to the fact that life isn’t supposed to just cater to their every whim and entertain them at every turn. To be honest, many of them probably already know that and won’t be as upset about losing TikTok as pundits pretend.

    I dislike broad-brushstroke generational warfare, because (as you’ve pointed out in the past in reference to the Greatest Generation, Jonah) no generation is a monolith. It’s so stupid when people cast the politics of a TikTok ban as simply some kind of offensive in a myopic counterinsurgency older generations are supposedly waging against younger generations. The world isn’t a zero-sum battle between different age groups (or identity groups) for power and influence. There are more important things (like national security) going on.

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  2. Keith Jagger

    Nazis marching in Skokie inspired a Blues Brothers plot line, so there’s that.

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  3. Francislyo

    Great pod! Appreciated your discussion on how a monopoly on discourse can lead to the mere expression of meaningful dissent being seen as provocation or the spreading of hate.

    On your prior reaction to DeSantis’s comments on Tucker Carlson’s show that the Ukraine War is just a "territorial dispute" and we should not send tanks, guns and bullets to help Ukrainians beat back the Russians: No. You were *not* too hard on DeSantis.

    Regardless of whether or not DeSantis was merely trying to pander to the MAGA base but misread the broader reaction, his statements signaled to Putin that if he could just keep the war going till 2024 there would likely be a Trump/Putin government who would withhold weaponry from Ukraine, greatly lessening the obstacles to Putin’s territorial ambitions.

    As for “Territorial dispute”: Didn’t Russia and Ukraine agreed to borders as they existed in 1994 when Russia signed the Budapest Memorandum promising to never attack Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine giving up its nukes to Russia:
    See: Yes, Russia promised in 1994 to never attack Ukraine if it gave up its nuclear weapons
    https://www.verifythis.com/article/news/verify/global-conflicts/ukraine-agreed-to-give-up-nukes-in-exchange-for-safety-from-russia-invasion-attack-budapest-memorandum-treaty/536-8748a51f-10ee-47f0-be30-b4088750ee44

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  4. Avatar photo
    Porouke

    Speaking of Gen X nostalgia, I sincerely hope that Jonah reading “FIRE” in the style of Beavis of Beavis and Butt-Head fame was intentional.

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  5. Bryan.Renica

    I'm sure your CNN buddies would have no issue with a University president putting the kibosh on a fraternity wet t-shirt contest or bikini mud wrestling even if it was raising money for charity.

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  6. Avatar photo
    Marc Frischhertz

    Oh Jonah,

    Maybe not you, but lots of people you call friends created a conservative identity that led to Trump’s election. Led to millions of people viewing liberals as worse than our actual enemies

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  7. Avatar photo
    Anne W (Raw5254)

    Yes, we do all have that family member and/or friend who brings us to the point where we’ve had enough.

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  8. Avatar photo
    Jim Canestrari

    Regarding Joey Jackson’s reference to the University being the “laboratory of the mind” and should be allowed to operate with unfettered oversight - obviously this person has never actually spent any time in a real laboratory. Where there is a whole lot of oversight that protects everyone else in the lab, that protects the careless researcher from personal harm or reaching erroneous conclusions. If this attorney actually followed this metaphor for any distance, the actions of the college president not only seem reasonable but very ordinary. Like insisting that everyone wears safety goggles. Like being careful what reactions are permitted in certain containers. Like the handling and storage of raw materials. Like how things are managed and documented. No one gets to walk into any real lab anywhere and declare that they get to make up the rules as they go along. Otherwise disaster would likely follow.

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  9. Goatprairie

    Jonah’s point about all Americans, despite their differences in issues and politics, have a lot more in common than differences is an excellent one.

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      Anne W (Raw5254)

      I agree!

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  10. Avatar photo
    Joe Schueller

    Sorry, but I’ve got to call hogwash on the TikTok situation being an example of the deification of youth phenomenon. It’s not just that these people are old (no one can say it’s not at least a little bit about that) - it’s that they were asking the stupidest, most ignorant questions imaginable. An entire generation of people who have grown up online are hearing people who can’t tell you the difference between “the Internet” and “the WiFi” claiming that TikTok is doing a series of things that *all social media companies do* and acting as if the CCP has infiltrated the brains of every TikTok user in America. I don’t think you can simply say “kids these days” and call it.

    To harken back to the Dispatch Pod this week, all of this smacks of “Saddam has WMDs” to this group. That’s why people are so damn mad about it. No evidence has been provided - “it’s a national security issue, the intel says… blah blah blah” is what people hear. That’s absolutely going to elicit a harsh reaction when the messengers are on display as technical morons.

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